Five Myths About Women and Success and What You Can Do to Squelch Them

Stop these five myths that hurt women's opportunities and happiness.

One of the greatest surprises and frustration I found when I did my doctoral research on today's women in the workplace was how long it takes for research and literature to catch up with societal trends. In particular, in 2005 I found little had been written about the emerging numbers of strong, smart, goal-driven women in the workplace. As a result, many women felt, and still feel, misunderstood and mismanaged.

Today, more speakers, articles and books give smart, strong, goal-driven women solid encouragement and useful tools. Yet I still find lingering myths about women and success that affect both their opportunities and their sense of well-being. Here are five of those myths.

Some of these myths may still reflect reality in your workplace. Some are based on fading assumptions. You need to question if they are true for you today so you are free to make healthier choices for yourself.

1. Women need to work harder than men to prove themselves. In a recent survey of working adults conducted by Accenture, 68 percent of the women thought it took hard work and long hours to advance in a company. Almost all of my female executive coaching clients tell me they need to work harder than men. The result leaves them feeling burned out and resentful for the lack of appreciation for their efforts.

When I interview their bosses (male and female) and their colleagues, they all wish my clients would lighten up. No one has ever suggested my clients should work harder.

There is a danger that if you work twice as hard as everyone else, you set up the expectation you will work twice as hard forever. Also, if you are working later than everyone else, does it appear that you have to work harder to keep up? Although this myth may be a truth in some workplaces, be careful you are not making these statements up because someone told you this when you first started your career. Your good results speak for themselves.

2. Women can't make mistakes while continually proving their value to the organization. This myth is the sister belief to the first myth. Yet being creative, innovative and an inspiration to others requires you make and learn from mistakes. You will stunt your growth if you only do what you know you will easily master. You will miss opportunities if you don't take some risks.

3. Women can't joke around or they won't be taken seriously. Victor Borge said, "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people" Laughter is multi-cultural and never gets old. All people laugh at all ages. When we laugh with someone, it is hard to judge them negatively.

Giving people hope and a vision of what is possible helps people move forward. Laughter can also accomplish this. In fact, laughter can be more contagious than encouragement to those who are resistant. It's hard not to smile when someone around you is laughing. Plus, the chemical reaction in the brain increases creativity and productivity. Having a good sense of humor should be on all lists of leadership traits.

4. Feminine traits make women better leaders (or the reverse-women lack the killer-instinct and masculine skills to survive in top positions). A recent HBR blog found that although men account for nearly two-thirds of all leaders, the data Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman collected suggests female bosses may be outperforming their male counterparts. Women were rated higher than men by peers, bosses, workers and direct reports, with the most senior female business leaders being ranked a full 10 percentage points higher than the top male CEOs. What were these "good-leadership" traits? Examples include taking initiative, driving for results, and displaying high integrity and honesty.

We should no longer claim these traits to be "masculine." They indicate traits of a good leader regardless of gender.

And, no matter how many books or articles declare feminine qualities as essential to corporate success, traits such as compassion, insight and nurturing must be balanced with the stronger traits mentioned above. Even companies that want these more collaborative traits in their employees still only promote people into upper management positions if they demonstrate they are confident, assertive and can speak with both brevity and clarity.

5. Women don't support each other in the workplace. Yes women do bad things to each other ranging from ignoring people to outright backstabbing. I question if only women do this. I have experienced men who do this as well. I believe this type of behavior reflects the lack of trust in the corporate culture more than the habits of gender.

On the other hand, I know lots of women who give their time and energy to mentor other women and to create opportunities for women to help each other inside and outside of the workplace. I would love for people to quit perpetuating the "cat-fighting" myth.

You can help make this myth go away when you quit repeating a related myth: I don't have time to make friends at work. Friends open doors and connect you with other people. They also can talk with you and sometimes just be silent with you when work is overwhelming or discouraging. Coaches, mentors, and colleagues can provide critical eyes to help you stay on track. Biologically, when you socially connect with others, you activate the brain regions that improve health and increase creativity.

Take time to create your positive conspiracy of change. The more women stand together to remove these myths, the better off we all will be.

I love how we talk about all the malicious things others do to each other. HOw you say others can give out opportunities to other people and have so much say. How about for ONCE looking at someone's quality of work instead of creating a bitch click at the office. How can we help this growing problem you might ask? For once stop hiring girls who know each other then put them in a positive environment around others who do want to guide others in a give and take situation. I can't speak for everyone but believe if you don't say it then nothing will happen. These girls are vicious and don't understand how to do effective work and have self esteem so they can easily tear down others just to get ahead. This is sick and corporate culture needs to stop hostility towards individual people and look at grouped networking and how some folks were hired. There is a bunch of Americans who need to get back to work in mainstream America and these women are definitley not helping.

I recently asked a psychologist why women (high school golfers) are detached from the LPGA and pursuing golf scholarships in college. He responded "women are not as success driven" as men. After looking at the definition of success, I find that the words: favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors, attainment of something, a performance or achievement are used. Another definition is "the favorable outcome of something attempted". After reading your myths, I feel his answer fell under one of them. When you defined good leadership traits:
taking initiative, driving for results, high integrity, honesty, I felt women possess all of them and maybe are more honest than men as a whole. In golf I still do not understand why they do not take the initiative and are driven as much as men. You mention that women possess compassion, insight and nurturing traits. So I conclude that they may outperform men in teaching and being around children, offering insight and nurturing skill development. The statement that upper management people are more confident, assertive, speak with brevity and clarity are traits of women also. The question again is why are women not attempting something that allows them to experience success? Please comment!

Keith, I don't believe women as a whole lack drive. Like men, some do and some don't. But what they are driven to achieve might not be the same as what our society defines as success. Success to one person could be to be at the top. To another, it could be to "enjoy my work and life, have enough money to be comfortable, and spend quality time with the people I love." When you look at the generations after the Boomers, you will find many more pictures of "the favorable outcome of something attempted" than prestigious recognition. In my work, I found high-achieving women to be driven more by frequent new challenges (they get bored easily) and work that provides them with a feeling of significance. They are very driven but their career paths aren't a straight shot up. Possibly the women golfers realize they want something more from their lives than to be seen as a golf pro.